Analysts exclude risks for Kadyrov from meeting with Putin

The meeting of the head of Chechnya with the Russian president amid the growing resonance of Kadyrov's struggle against Yangulbaevs looks like a Kremlin's attempt to gently correct the governor, but this will not affect the stability of Kadyrov's positions, the analysts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have pointed out.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that today Dmitry Peskov, the presidential press secretary, confirmed that on February 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a meeting in Moscow with the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov; and that economic issues and "topics related to the work of law enforcement bodies" were discussed at the meeting.

The Putin's meeting with Kadyrov looks like an unplanned one, said Evgeny Minchenko, the president of the "Minchenko Consulting" Holding. "The general public will never know the real content of this meeting," he has stated.

Judging by Peskov's statement, the current meeting is unlikely to strengthen Kadyrov's position, Mr Minchenko has added. "It was a kind of 'psychotherapy' for Kadyrov. At the same time, one must understand that Kadyrov and the whole system that is currently in place in Chechnya is one of the significant elements of Putin's state as a whole. Therefore, it would be naïve to expect some sort of 'excoriation'. Probably, we can expect that they will somehow correct the line of behaviour. But, in general, the regime that has been formed in the today's Chechen Republic has a high degree of stability," Evgeny Minchenko has stressed.

Svetlana Gannushkina, the chair of the "Civic Assistance" Committee*, considers two possible interpretations of the Putin's meeting with Kadyrov. "The first is support. Every time something happens, when Kadyrov feels in danger, he rushes to Putin. But, on the other hand, Kadyrov could well have been summoned to the Kremlin, and this was a kind of 'peremptory shout' from Putin, a rather shout. On the sidelines, Kadyrov may have been told that he had gone too far. But it was not said loudly in public," Ms Gannushkina has explained.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 3, 2022 at 05:30 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.